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LATEST TECH NEWS: Facebook to close Irish subsidiary over tax dispute. 1 other thing and a trivia you need to know today, December 31, 2020

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These latest stories from the tech space will keep you updated with trends today.

1. Facebook to close Irish subsidiary over tax dispute

Social media giant Facebook has announced the possible close down of its Irish subsidiary over tax dispute.

The development comes on the heels of a public accusation made by the Irish government, alleging Facebook of shifting profits to avoid taxes.

On Wednesday, December 30, Facebook confirmed it decision to close its Irish subsidiaries at the center of a dispute on profit shifting to avoid taxes in the United States.

According to press, the California tech giant is winding down its Facebook Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company amid a dispute with US tax authorities, which claimed the company owed billions in taxes by improperly shifting profits offshore.

Facebook, however, has disputed the claims from US tax authorities seeking some $9 billion for allegedly undervaluing intellectual property assets used by the social network.


Tech Trivia:

Which of these digital tools doesn’t help monitor mentions online?

A. Google Alert
B. Awario
C. Agorapulse
D. AdWords

Answer: See end of post.


2. China’s adaptive robot maker Flexiv closes $100 million

Flexiv, China’s adaptive robot maker, has closed a Series B round of $100 million.

The round, which was led by China’s on-demand services giant Meituan, saw the participation from other major investors including Chinese venture capital firm Meta Capital, New Hope Group, private equity firm Longwood, Jack Ma’s YF Capital, prominent Chinese venture capital firms Gaorong Capital and GSR Ventures.

Read also: LATEST TECH NEWS: Google launches search feature to aggregate short videos. 1 other thing and a trivia you need to know today, December 30, 2020

According to press, the new round boosted the startup’s capital raised so far to over $120 million.

In 2016, Wang Shiquan, an alumnus of Stanford’s Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab, founded Flexiv with a focus on building adaptive robots for the manufacturing industry.

The new funding is expected to be used to push its plans towards implementing its AI-driven, general-purpose robots in other areas such as services, agriculture, logistics and medical care.


Tech Trivia Answer: AdWords

While Awario, Agorapulse and Google Alert are web/social mentioning tools, AdWords is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content, and generate mobile application installs within the Google ad network to web users.

Monitoring tools, on the other hand, help users keep track of the digital mentions of netizens, brands, companies, and/or products.

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